[psycho d]

The Road (2009). The Road is one of those rare movies that could steal the fun out from underneath a perfectly innocent game of hopscotch. The real question is, why in the heck would anyone want to see a movie as bleak as this one? Yeah, like sign me up for a companion journey through a desolate, desperate Hell where from moment to moment we cannot understand why people don't just pop right off the nearest cliff. The answer, I think, is that this movie hits the essence of a post-apocalyptic world like no other. This is no action adventure, there are no heroes, this is a grim drama about a fear that the Bible has been using to mop up gatherers for a couple of thousand years now.

The story is dark dark dark. What we are to privy to are choices that no man should face, conditions that challenge our sense of humanity, almost as if civilization were just some contrived notion for the benefit of bureaucratic inefficiency. Just what will man endure, and worse, what depraved abominations will his feral nature allow in order to survive another day? This movie does have its thankfully tender moments, and they work because they only seem logical for the moment, making this an emotional roller coaster ride that the viewer might not have been ready for. For the squeamish, this movie is simply not for you. There is no gratuitous violence and gore, but gore and violence and depravity more than make up the movie's constitutional import.

The acting was phenomenal. The two central protagonists, played by Viggo Mortensen and child actor Kodi Smit-McPhee, create a chemistry that is not only palpable, but believable. Each worships the other, mostly for all the right reasons, but in doing so their characters are put to the test of human endurance. This endurance is not without its cracks, and it is through these flaws that the characters seem all too real, and their plight all too painful. The rest of the cast enjoy rather limited, but not insignificant, roles. Robert Duvall's brief appearance is a powerful one, and Charlize Theron's role not only provides a much needed optical respite, but also lends to the film's dreary journey as her character sees the veritable nature of existence in all of its abject weight.

The direction here was magnificent. Taken from a novel, the technicalities are reported to have kept to the main theme of the story without having distorted it too much in order to transfer it from page to film. The photography was amazing. It captured the cheerless landscape with a loathsome eye, adding heft to our protagonist's journey that would break the back of the heartiest of lumberjacks. By the time our eyes have adjusted the barren and colorless landscape, a timely flashback abruptly reveals the nightmare that we are living, almost mean in character but a necessity all the same. Some of the scenes were as breathtaking as they were heartbreaking. And the score was perfect, dancing between desolation and a cruel glimmer of hope, moving the viewer deeper and deeper into the trappings cinematic empathy.

By this movie's end, though you will be emotionally exhausted, you'll have just enough energy to make sure that the pantry is fully stocked, and sadly, you might even be moved to set aside a number of bullets equal to that of your family.
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